Last week, a Glendale family was sent on a wild goose chase trying to find Sean Trainor, whose nearly weeklong disappearance could have been shortened had a Brooklyn hospital not mistakenly sent the missing person away to a homeless shelter.

Sean, a schizophrenic 37-year-old who lives with his mother in Glendale, went missing last Saturday, May 10, after he told his mother that he was going to go for a walk and never returned.

Sean’s sister, Kerry Trainor, had been looking for him since then, when she received a call Thursday morning, May 15, from the NYPD at about 3:45 a.m.

“I got a call from the 104th Precinct saying he was in the hospital,” Kerry said.

A sergeant had recognized Sean from a photo posted on Facebook, and he was transported to Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn.

Kerry called the hospital and asked for Sean to be held there until she could make it over to pick him up. She first had to drop her daughter off at school.

But when Kerry showed up at Woodhull around 10:30 a.m., Sean was no longer there.

“I told them to hold him because he’s schizophrenic,” Kerry said. “They said, ‘Oh, we’ll hold him,’ and then by the time I got there they had released him.”

Kerry was then informed that the hospital had treated Sean as if he were homeless. He had some cuts on his feet, which they cleaned, and then they sent him away with a bus pass and the address of a homeless shelter in Manhattan.

Kathy Masi, president of the Glendale Civic Association, who helped with public outreach to find Sean, was shocked that Woodhull staff had lost him.

“I can’t believe they lost him,” Masi said. “People don’t understand the seriousness of mental health. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that our emergency rooms are so overburdened, that the hospitals don’t spend the time, or can’t spend the time, to understand what’s going on.”

Since he had been given a bus pass, his sister believed that he could have been in Manhattan, but she guessed that he walked from the hospital, down Myrtle Avenue to Forest Park, an area that he likes.

Kerry was worried because she did not know the state Sean was in after not having taken his medication for almost a week. He has been living with his mother and taking medication twice a day for about ten years.

Fortunately, around 2 a.m. on Friday morning, Sean was found again, this time walking around Downtown Brooklyn.

Tom Sackett, a Glendale resident who posted Sean’s photo to his Twitter and Facebook, said that he received a text message from a friend in the 84th Precinct early Friday morning saying he had found Sean.

Instead of being brought to a hospital, Sackett requested that Sean be brought to the 84th Precinct and detained there until his family could come pick him up.

Sackett said it appeared that Sean had not slept or showered when he was found.

The Glendale Civic Association Facebook page was filled with messages of relief from friends and community members.

“I am writing to inform everyone that Sean Trainor has been found,” read one post. “My husband and his sister Kerry Trainor are with him now. He’s on his way to get the proper help he needs. The Trainor family thanks everyone for their support and prayers. They finally have peace of mind.”